This week, CreditUnions.com shows how a charter change affects credit union performance, learns the art of choosing a data scientist, finds a way to foster foundation support, and more.
Here are five can't-miss data points this week:
96 Credit Unions
A change from a federal charter to a state charter or vice versa can be a viable strategy to revise a credit union’s target member base. Since the beginning of 2014, 54 credit unions have converted from a federal to a state charter, whereas 42 ditched their state charter in favor of operating under federal legislation. When viewing conversion data in the collective, using the data from the 5300 Call Report and Callahan & Associates Peer-to-Peer, certain performance trends start to unfold. When asking those credit unions why they did what they did, however, stories emerge.
Read: How Does A Charter Change Affect Credit Union Performance?
5-Year Journey
As vice president of analytics and consulting services at Wings Financial Credit Union, Mike Lindberg knows well the challenge of finding the right people in a job market ripe with competition. Lindberg’s task is made more challenging by the need to find people with the right mix of technical aptitude and collegial attitude to work in a collaborative culture across departmental lines. But Lindberg doesn’t go it alone. Linwood Mielke, who joined the credit union in the summer of 2018 as an HR business partner, has helped Lindberg on his now five-year journey that has resulted in the creation of a data solutions department as well as Lindberg’s recent promotion to his current position after three years as manager of strategic analytics and member insights.
Read: The Art Of Choosing A Data Scientist
100 Funding Inquiries
As the charitable arm of the nation’s largest state-chartered credit union, the SECU Foundation has funded high-impact projects that improve the quality of life in every one of North Carolina’s 100 counties. The 501(c)3 receives more than 100 funding inquiries every year and relies on local advisory boards to help vet applications. Final approval for projects comes from the foundation board, which itself is appointed by the corporate board of the foundation’s parent organization, State Employees Credit Union. The approval process reflects the deep level of integration that exists between the foundation and SECU, whose membership claims approximately one-fourth of the state’s population of 10 million people.
Read: Fostering Foundation Support From Branch To Board
2014
Until 2014, Digital Federal Credit Union encouraged innovation to produce internal benefits. It solicited opinions from staff members about areas of improvement and partnered with local colleges to take the pulse of the youth. The strategy was educational but not so much actionable. Then, in 2014, the credit union opened the first iteration of what eventually became the FinTech Innovation Center, the space where forward-thinking companies could work and learn and introduce new products and services had communitywide benefits.
Read: What Does Fintech Innovation Look Like In Credit Union Land?
$148 Million
It’s almost impossible to have a conversation about secondary capital in the credit union industry without mentioning the two Self-Help credit unions Self-Help Credit Union and Self-Help Federal Credit Union. Self-Help Credit Union was the first credit union to obtain secondary capital when the enabling legislation 12 CFR 701.34 went into effect in 1996 and made the option available to low-income credit unions (LICUs). For several years, the two North Carolina-based institutions held the majority of secondary capital that was in the credit union system. Even today, the duo holds $148 million of the $292 million of secondary capital in the market.
Read: How Martin Eakes Became The Most Hated Man In America
Happy Reading!
